During the study of the process of settling people in the territory of the forest-steppe and steppe zones of Western Siberia, both valleyside settlement sites of the Bronze Age and watershed lakeside settlements have been identified. The settlement of Zolotoe 1 is one of the few sites of the Late Bronze Age investigated by excava-tions and confined to the vast water-dividing surface between the rivers Tobol and Ishim in Kurgan Oblast. Two stages of population have been identified, associated with the Alakul and Alekseyevka-Sargary Cultures. Despite the change of the resource base from alluvial to watershed, the archaeological materials do not indicate differ-ences in the economies and traditions of the Alakul population of this watershed settlement from the analogous valley sites. Due to the lack of data on the environment of such watershed settlements of the Bronze Age, the analysis has been carried out on the pollen data from the benthal deposits of Lake Zolotinskoe nearby the settle-ment (off-site data), carbonated macro-residues from various archaeological contexts of the occupational layer (on-site data), and the soil profiles on the settlement and beyond it (on-site data). By means of the radiocarbon dating it was found that the palynological data from the lake core sample show the environmental conditions of only the last third — end of the 2nd millennium BCE, beginning from the 24th century BCE; hence, it has not been possible to reconstruct the specifics of the natural environment surrounding the Alakul population of the site du-ring the first phase of the settlement. The overall environmental background for the time depth of the Alakul Cul-ture has been analyzed on the data from the neighboring regions. It appears that it does not correspond with the arid phase but is related to warm, but moderately humid conditions. However, already in the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE (3,500–3,300 cal. BP), probably, there were changes towards more arid and/or warm climate, which brought about adverse conditions for the forestation in the forest-steppe, advance of the steppe and a low-ering of the groundwater table. This is also confirmed by the results of the study of Lake Zolotinskoe. Beginning from the 24th century BCE, the watershed areas of the Tobol basin were dominated by open meadow-steppe landscapes with small birch forests, while the climate was more arid than it is today. The lower part of the lake waterside was heavily waterlogged; the lake probably shoaled in summer, but did not overdry. Such a natural environment was the background for the second period of population of the settlement by the bearers of the Alek-seyevka-Sargary Culture and, probably, was not changing up until the end of the 2nd millennium BCE. The most part of the carbonized macro-residues of the Alakul and the Sargary cultural layer belongs to ruderal flora, which suggests a long-term inhabitation on the settlement. The analysis of the soil buried underneath the cultural layer suggests that during the emergence of the settlement the natural conditions were similar to modern, but differed in a better water availability.

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The paper concerns the analysis of the local environment around the multi-layer settlements of Mergen 6 and 7 situated in the immediate vicinity of each other. The settlements existed successively (partly contempora-neously in the early and high Neolithic) in the forest-steppe belt of Western Siberia. Two methods were chosen to obtain the results: spore-and-pollen (palynological) and microbiomorphic analyses of the cultural layers of the settlements of Mergen 6 and Mergen 7. In the settlement of Mergen 6, the following samples were collected for the palynological and microbiomorphic investigation: a vertical column from the center of the ditch of the dwelling no.5; areal soil samples of the dwelling no.5 from underneath the pottery debris of the Neolithic and Eneolithic periods; areal samples from the bottom layer of the dwelling no.21. In the settlement of Mergen 7, two vertical core samples were selected for the pore-and-pollen analysis: in the ditch of the dwelling no.1; and in the inter-dwelling area. Samples from the hearthing of the dwellings and from the inter-dwelling space were collected for the microbiomorphic analysis. The obtained results show that both settlements existed during the forest-steppe conditions, although the original landscapes of the sites chosen by the people for building the settlements were different in the early and high Neolithic. It appears that during the early Neolithic, the settlement of Mergen 6 was associated with an open site with meadow-steppe vegetation; birch forests constituted a small part of the land-scape, whilst there were no pine forests in the close vicinity. During the middle Neolithic, people in the settlement of Mergen 7 preferred to settle in a birch wood, having cleared out a small area to build the dwelling. The results of the microbiomorphic analysis show that, despite the lack of pine forests nearby the settlements, people still used pine tim-ber in housebuilding, apparently, intentionally. The frequent occurrence of remains of the wood detritus at the level of the floor of the dwellings and under pottery supports the initial archaeological observations about timber decking inside the houses. However, pollen and phytolithic studies do not demonstrate a wide use of the wetland waterside vegetation in housebuilding, apparently, because the lake at the time was not overgrown on the banks by reed and cattail. There-fore, despite the close location of the two sites and their similar hunting-fishing specialization of the subsistences, their populations in different chronological periods preferred distinct local conditions.

The study, based on uniformed criteria, summarizes a large series of palynological data and is aimed at re-construction of the vegetation history of the second half of the Holocene based on pollen data from peatlands. The main objective of this work is to compare the results of palynological studies from cultural layers of 30 Neo-lithic-Medieval archaeological sites (on-site data) and five natural archives (off-site records) in the sub-taiga and forest-steppe areas of Tobol River region and on the territory of the Ishim Plain (south of Western Siberia). The main analytical and correlation tools were the calculated indicators of pollen indices and biomes. Baseline pa-laeoecological changes have been analysed by the pollen index of openness/forestness (the ratio of wood vs grass pollen), the aridity index (the ratio of the summed amount of wormwood and chenopod pollen to that of ce-reals) and the dynamics of forest and steppe biome of peatlands; similar pollen indices have been calculated for the cultural layers. All indicators have been synchronized by age and fixed on a single timeline for comparison. The increasing role of forest vegetation in the forest-steppe has been considered as an indicator of increased effective hydration, forest degradation has been associated with the lack of it. The aridity index has been used as an indirect argument, reflecting the condition of grass communities outside the forest, it increases with the syn-chronous aridization and warming, but is also subject to strong distortion under the influence of human activity. Six stages of vegetation change have been identified: 6.0–4.2 ka — increase in proportion of forests in the northern forest steppe; 4.2–3.3 ka — minimal forestation of the territory; 3.3–2.5 ka — gradual regeneration of forest areas; 2.5–1.9 ka — reduction of the proportion of forests; 1.9–0.7 ka — the most pronounced forestation of the territory; 0.7–0 ka — reduction of the proportion of forests. In general, the outlined stages correspond with the overall scheme of development of landscape and climatic conditions in the southern regions of Western Siberia, though have regional specifics. Comparison of palynological data from natural archives (peatlands) and cultural layers by pollen indices demonstrates, that the anthropogenic disturbance of the composition of grass vegetation near the sites in most cases prevents objective assessment of natural conditions, but characterizes the appearance of the settlement landscape near the sites during its functioning and is associated with economic activity.

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